


as it goes

by bluehasnoclues



Series: harry potter oneshots [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter Needs a Hug, Hurt Harry Potter, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Occlumency
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-04 02:17:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17295830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluehasnoclues/pseuds/bluehasnoclues
Summary: Harry shows up for Occlumency lessons. Snape leaves unnerved.





	as it goes

It was fifth year. Detentions with Umbridge made for a constant pain in Harry’s left hand and too-often cramps in his right. He didn’t dare speak out more than he already had; the only thing that could possibly result from _that_ would be yet another Educational Degree.

The best thing Harry could do now was sit out the year with his head down and work best he could in the shadows. He had ten years (and every summer thereafter) of experience, at least.

It was more difficult to focus in classes with a throbbing hand and a pulsing scar, but Harry numbed out the pain (another learned ability) and continued on as if everything was normal. In a way, it was.

He did his best to support DA, but he knew his mind was elsewhere. Where that was, exactly, he wasn’t quite sure, but he was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate during daily activities as well as classes. Even dining in the Great Hall sometimes proved to be a challenge, especially when he was occasionally subjected to Professor McGonagall’s disappointed glances.

But Harry couldn’t do anything about his newest apathy; he wasn’t even sure he wanted to. He felt as if he was slipping and the world was slowly fading away. Or perhaps it was _him_ doing the fading.

Hermione was growing concerned as he let his grades fall. He didn’t know quite what to say to her, and anyway, Ron was rather adept at redirecting her attentions, purposely or not.

Harry, when he was called into Dumbledore’s office and asked (ordered) to learn Occlumency from Snape _(Snape!)_ , knew that if Fate was a person, she would be giving him a very large, cruel smile. In place of protest, where he might have argued in years past, Harry simply gave the Headmaster a tight smile and a small nod and asked to be excused.

He felt oddly hungry at supper that night.

Two days later, it was his first ‘Remedial Potions’ session, which meant, if he had read his texts correctly, he would spend the evening having his mind ripped to shreds. (Harry wondered how different that would be from Snape’s usual eloquently caustic insults.)

He took care to arrive on time, even though that meant he spend twelve minutes patiently lurking just around the corner. He knocked on the door to Snape’s office right as the clock switched, just loud enough that the professor would hear it but not so much as to bother him.

(Though judging by the deep-set scowl on the professor’s face when he opened the door, Harry in of himself was a bother. Somehow, Harry wasn’t surprised.)

“Right on time, Potter,” Snape grimaced, and Harry found himself missing the professor’s usual sneer.

When Harry did not verbally respond, giving only a nod reminiscent of the one he gave the Headmaster, Snape’s mouth twitched downward as he stepped aside and sharply gestured for the younger boy to go inside. Harry moved past him with another nod, this one a tad more respectful, and stood carefully (resignedly) in the center of the room with his hands clasped behind his back, awaiting his professor’s instructions.

“I assume you’ve done no research on the topic of Occlumency?” Snape asked scornfully.

“I have, sir,” Harry said calmly. He very deliberately showed no response to the hatred in Snape’s eyes, though he absentmindedly noticed that this was one of the first times that his professor’s abhorrence of him seemed to roll off of Harry without too much impact.

“And what, pray tell, have you learned?” The older man sounded no more bitter than usual.

“Occlumency is the practice — art — of sealing and defending one’s mind. Sir.”

Harry had thought that was a reasonably well-rounded explanation, but judging by Snape’s worsening expression, his answer seemed to be as subpar as always.

“And have you practiced at all?”

“Yes, sir.”

Snape’s scowl deepened. “Legilimens.”

Harry immediately plunged into his own mind, strengthening his defenses to the best of his ability. He could feel the foreign presence forcing its way in, so he plunged his thoughts into darkness and, when he knew his walls were failing (it was a truly impressive two seconds, Harry thought bitterly), let them vanish.

The malignant presence in his head _lashed_ , searching, and Harry surrounded his professor in the familiar darkness, in the shadows that Harry had known as home for so long, taking the corners of his mind and pushing them outward just out of reach as the black grew exponentially.

But Snape was far more skilled than he, and Harry could feel his professor closing in on memories that were _not_ his to view. Harry wanted to shout in denial, reject the foreign presence, but saying _no_ had never worked for him anyway, so he threw aside his useless refusal and instead centered on something else, something that no books had mentioned but Harry had a feeling would work for _him_.

Snape was too close, now, to the inner workings of Harry’s mind. It couldn’t have been more than five seconds from when they began, but Harry had long-since adapted to working under pressure, and so he pulled his will together and strengthened his resolve.

Harry pushed his memories and emotions out of the way, spreading the blackness as far as it would go, and began _suffocating_ his professor, pressuring the foreign mind with an onslaught of fifteen years’ worth of isolation.

That, he figured, would work far more efficiently than fear or anger or a simple ‘no’; fear could be cast aside, anger gentled, refusals ignored, but pure and utter _black-numb-void-empty-nothing-hollow-bare-abandoned_ —

Harry was never all that good at enforcing walls, but if there was one thing he knew, it was that the darkness could be the best companion and the worst enemy. This, he calculated, would take great advantage of his childhood and would be far easier to conjure than the _walls_ that were so-promoted in the literature he had read.

Professor Snape retracted his mind, and Harry opened his eyes. The older man was staring at him with a strange look in his eye, but made no comment other than to say, “Nearly halfway competent,” and, without warning, launch another (more forceful) attack.

Harry was quicker this time than the last, just as Snape was harsher and more determined. The increasingly destructive presence almost made Harry smile, for it was much easier to call the dark. This time Harry tried something new, making his darkness croon softly, saying _come, come to me, I will welcome you and be with you and make you stronger —_

And Snape went in further, signaling Harry’s turn to attack with a steady and overwhelming vacuum of _black-void-empty-lifeless-stiff-hollow-derelict-alone-bare-forgotten-abandoned-forsaken —_

Snape ripped out of Harry’s mind, but it did no damage, because that part of Harry’s mind thrived off of pain and used it as an advantage.

“Hardly enough to keep the Dark Lord out,” said Snape contemptuously as he nearly shoved Harry out of his office. Harry didn’t care all that much for his professor’s words; after all, he could see the obviously shaken look on the man’s face as he looked at Harry, who perhaps had finally, _finally_ done something right. 

Maybe it wouldn't be enough, but when was it ever?

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many half-baked ideas about how that first occlumency lesson could have gone it's actually a bit sad


End file.
